Suggestions: my long list.

First off I want to say I have really enjoyed playing Everspace. It is fun. The gameplay is smooth. The story meshes with the game. The graphics are beautiful.

I have a very long list of possible suggestions (body is 8892 characters too long, so reply to selfs coming). I've collected while playing. It's a fun game, I'm a fan of indie development, and hope to maybe contribute in a small way. I haven't really read many other peoples' suggestions so I might duplicate. I would love to hear what you think of any of the suggestions: Do you think it could work? Could it make the game even more fun? Do you have further or similar ideas?

Remove class restrictions on everything but give it a disadvantage on the wrong ship type (might sound better as an advantage on the right ship type, i.e. double duration/effect/etc), (some things might need to do something else, like a shield recharge drone could repair the gunship 1 nanobot per jump). I understand you want to make each ship have a unique feel. Cross use allows more possibilities, which equates to more replayability and fun. Surely there is some threshold where you are comfortable with cloaking gunships, equipping turrets on scouts, etc. It also allows a player to try a turret on the interceptor, and be like that is interesting or really fits my style of play, I really want to purchase the gunship to take full advantage of it.

Enhancement ideas:Hostiles have 25% chance to drop a random resource, but no mine-able resources.

100 credits for every initial hostile ship alive when you jump out but all hostile ships detect you at any distance.

Increase credit drop rate by 5%.

Decrease crafting cost by 5%, or a 5% chance on each crafting resource that it is not consumed.

Devices use fuel instead of energy (1 fuel per 5 energy or so). Or a device that can use fuel to make energy.

Corvettes and frigates don't warp in but if there are no hostiles fighters warp in somewhere on the map (or ships are more likely to call for reinforcements). (Or just capitol ships warp in much less often, fighters much more often).

Rebel hull that decreases shields by 50% and increases hull and hull armor by 25% (maybe affect drone hull for the gunship).

You boost in the direction you are flying instead of forwards but enemies use boost to close to weapons range.

Under the radar: Outlaws hostility is the same as G&B (attacks reported, otherwise non-hostile) but hostiles don't show up on your scanners (can't target them) (though missiles still lock on).

Gain a primary weapons slot, but lose a secondary weapon slot.

Gain a secondary weapon slot but lose a consumable slot (if used with double missiles, lose down to a single consumable slot, and have 2 missile slots).

Gain a device slot, but lose a primary weapon slot.

Gain 2 consumable slots, but lose a device slot.

Instead of the show ancient structure glyph, simply all players to pick in the star map for that run or sector to either have ancient structures, black holes, mine-able resource types and abundance, capitol ships and jump suppressors, or what type of natural hazard displayed. Or some way to pick up star chart information, or consumables that reveal these.

Bugs:Fuel consumption enhancement causes refueling when jumping to the next sector (which does not require fuel), and can refuel your ship beyond its maximum.

It is possible to drop multiple mines at the same time by clicking the use now button when picking up a consumable while full. It does do amazing damage tho.

The AI says "hostiles closing in" when flying up to turrets.

Jump charge duration sound ends before you jump when using fuel conservation subroutine.

Targeting:The green warp out marker needs to be darker green or something where there are obstacles. You can't see obstacles in the distance because the marker is covering them to keep it charging while dodging fire.

When a target goes from being offscreen to being onscreen, it initially moves away from the direction you're turning, jumping from the halo around the view area, to the very edge of the screen where the target is. This jump being is against the direction of movement, and the reduction in size make tracking things onto the screen very difficult. Freespace 2 handles targeting very well.

Size difference based on how far away they are (needs more difference)An outline in a black or a contrasting color. The reticule gets this all this right.Some indicator of how far (angle) offscreen something is. Perhaps squashing the icon, or having it move in or out a little bit on the halo.

Mineable fuel should be the unusable item color if you're full. It would be nice if mine-able resources turned your reticule blue when its on them and they're in range.

Mark new drops in a darker blue that fades to lighter blue. I have to fly away and turn around to figure out what dropped close during my last battle. Or perhaps other changes would fix this.

When I target a ship, can the big circle be around where I need to shoot to hit them and the little circle on them (or a cone between the two). It is hard enough to see target lines as it is, let alone track a little circle within a larger one, especially when any cues from the ship on where to look for it are hidden in the awesome weapons blast visuals.

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Comments

Warping in units need a unique target indicator (flashing purple to red/yellow/green maybe). Can the AI call them out (5 new ships warping in........more outlaws, I knew it). Or something so you notice them before the 1 ship you were fighting is suddenly 5. A little more warning they're arriving would be nice, perhaps simply being noticeable right off would alleviate this. They should start with 0 speed on warp in like you do, not bouncing around erratically. Can the warp in animation indicate which way they will emerge so you can get behind them?

Can it be possible to disable passive devices, say the tractor beam mk3 and still carry it, instead of dropping it to get at its energy? It would be the skip this device when switching equivalent. A spool-up time for tractor beam and sensors, or released energy being empty (or both) would prevent abuse.

Show all missiles when picking what to keep. I know switching heavy missiles with heavy missiles is pointless but it is nice to see at a glance what you're carrying. I don't always know which missile type I picked up a duplicate set of, and it is a pain to exit the pickup screen, go to the inventory screen, see what I have, then go back to the pickup screen.

A last missile slot where you select the type of missile it will craft and use when you run out of other missiles (and a sound to indicate when you switch to this type of missile, and maybe a sound that indicates when you're crafting and firing). Helps the arcade feel, reduces the amount of time spent in the equipment screen, and the break in the action it causes. If you feel this is too powerful maybe make it so craft and shoot fires half as fast as regular missiles. Same with consumables. You don't craft them because you want to carry them around in a precious inventory slot (with the exception of nanobot items).

Some configurable auto-salvage options would be nice. Maybe allow selecting primary weapons you don't want to see, and an option to exempt or include enhanced versions of auto-salvage weapons. An option to auto-salvage things that are inferior to what you're carrying in every stat. Perhaps only allow auto salvage of weapons you have blueprints so players still see everything when going thru initially. Allow setting a threshold for devices and consumables, ie only auto salvage mk2 core extenders and below.

An option to see all items of a type in range would be nice, like all primary weapons, and salvage all. The toggle for this option could physically be on tractor beams in your inventory.

Have the AI say things like that's a nice weapon when picking up good stuff. Or rubbish if it is completely inferior version of something you already carry.

Allow selecting "skip when switching" on empty device slots/consumable. Once I was switching from the weapon overdrive to time extender, and had evidently picked up an energized boost. I don't have time to pay attention to what I'm picking up in combat. Or open the equipment screen to install active devices.

On the ship stats screen it would be nice to see current amounts of shields, hull, energy, and energy locked up by devices.

An optional target view, so you can see if they are pursuing, fleeing, or dodging while out of view. An optional rear view camera, like in descent 3 (for reverse spiral). An optional missile view (cuz it would be entertaining to watch them on their crazy flight paths). Maybe where you can have one of them up in the corner(s) at a time.

Ship ideas:A player flyable bomber ship that has shields, always shoots double missiles (triple with perk) but primary weapons take double energy. Either generates light missiles every jump, or can craft a bomber only craftable missile that only takes fuel. Upgradable blast radius bonus, can carry more missiles in a slot, longer missile tracking duration. Can only deploy 1 drone but starts each area with up to 2 anti missile drones (that drop nothing if destroyed).

Player flyable swarm ships. No secondary weapons slots. Each ship has a primary weapon slot, individual energy generation. At full health on a swarm fighter you can split it to replicate one that was lost (with its previous installed equipment). Each fighter has an equipment slot, but the effect are split between remaining ships. Primary weapons can be bound to the secondary fire button or primary fire groups. No armor bonus, but has small size. It would make it a fragile, high burst dps swarm, when at full count; but difficult to keep at full count. If a ship dies you lose access to its primary weapon, equipment, and consumable. Powerful in the right hands, but hard to use.

Okkar corvette as a playable ship. Costs 120,000 credits or so to buy (must be earned in one run). The ship has no boost nor strafe. Massive shields and hull. It's own nonstandard primary weapons set that can't be changed. No secondary weapons. Special devices (the arc 9000 type weapon it uses, energy discharge, deploy a few shield drones) only picked up from killing other corvettes. Can equip normal devices. Uses a normal shield generator but with like +200% capacity (ship upgrade). Slow and lumbering it can't fit a lot of places. Hostiles close on it from much larger range. Long warp cooldown and charge (as in can't warp out until okkar forces are arriving unless sector is clear) and uses more fuel. Killing before killed is the challenge here, and finding fuel and lumbering over to it. And don't even look at a black hole. No jump suppressors (unless you use the perk that adds them).

A configuration for ships that gives better equipment but is random based on what a person uses the least.

Display active drone(s) on equipment or hull/subsystem screen. Allow salvaging drones that are active and repairing with nanobots.

Can ships not jump in outside safe orbit? Or at least not capitol ships that won't follow you back into safe orbit? Can safe orbit be marked with holographic fences like for the radiation zone in the movie oblivion?

A way to cancel a run like if you have things mis-selected besides just waiting for them to kill you. Perhaps limited to the first area. To avoid RNG abuse have random equipment choices remain the same.

When adding mods it would be nice to see the stats that are changed before and after. Maybe by scrolling down farther to the weapons stats?

When choosing whether to salvage energy injectors or nano injects, can it display current energy and hull points, actually whenever using them from a display screen it would be nice too.

Chances of a weapon drop with mod(s) that fits your setup, with a mod of a type you want on that weapon (and none you don't want), of mk3 or maybe 2, before you've crafted a better weapon just does not happen in any significant amount. Weapons with mods either get used as a temporary until I craft something I can upgrade how I want, as the sniper rifle that rarely gets used (and so never upgraded), or when I was starting the game and trying new weapons out. There are a few options that might make weapon drops with mods actually useful:

Ability to remove mods from a weapon. Salvage is obvious, but if that upsets the resource balance, have like (10% for mk3, 7% for mk2, 4% for mk1) of the mod's effects remain after it is removed (up to some maximum bonus, say 10%). This could make craftable enhanced weapons, tho enhancing would be really expensive. On any enhanced weapons it would be nice to have the yellow glowing effect on enhanced stats names which the yellow gets brighter the closer it is to the max enhancement). Ability to move a mod to another weapon (for a cost) would permit changing weapons during a run, instead of being stuck once you craft your first mk3 mod.

Picking up mods individually and allowing us to place them on weapons, instead of coming pre-installed.

Ability to upgrade mods (mk1→mk2→mk3). I'm not saying it would be more economical that buying mk3 outright. This would really contribute to the arcade feel

Personally I like all 3 options together. You get to continue upgrading your weapons throughout the run. There is a really expensive but low benefit way to continue upgrading your weapon after it has it's mk3 mods, so you will never fully upgrade a weapon before the end of the run.

Longer headlight beam range. I can't tell if that dark spot on the giant rock is a passage or not until I have my nose against it, and I play on a large 4k tv. Light gets dimmer the farther away it is, but doesn't just stop 5 ship lengths ahead, can it be extended to at least 25 ship lengths. It would be nice if I could light an area by using primary weapons. On the other hand, some primary weapons cause so much lightburst on the enemy that I can't see which way they are turning and continue tracking them.

Please include on the general weapon stats whether a weapon can get critical hits. It is a 25% average damage boost and is really important for comparing weapons.

I have time to completely clear almost evety sector before okkar forces jump in. How about more sectors in an area and less time to jump in so you have to pick your targets, and make tradeoffs. And more interconnections between paths. It's okay to have lines cross...FTL does it without making it look too busy or confusing.

On the voice acting, things like "this is bad", are said fairly often. Can you use multiple takes and have it randomly pick which on it plays? This will give it a more organic catch phrase feel, instead of sounding as recorded. Do you already have multiple takes of everything from when you did recording? Even if some are not perfect, that might just add character to it.

No infinite mode? Or work as a mercenary for G&B attacking outlaw strongholds. Maybe this one could allow you to purchase your loadout with credits from you last run (after you've upgraded everything, you can purchase to unlock it). Maybe as a single sector arena sandbox to experiment with new combos. The clones have only ever known dogfighting, it makes sense that is the carrier they'd continue. Also a defend the station against ever increasing waves of outlaws, or have similar sized groups warp in with less and less time between them.

No love for swarm missiles? Especially with missile defense drones and such?

Plasma torpedoes cost more to craft per damage than heavy missiles - there is no reason to ever craft them.

Can the missile defense shoot mines, even if it takes it multiple hits to kill one?

Terminology on some things could be more consistent. The subroutine thrust diversion says that is decreases boost efficiency by 30%. Initially I thought this was boost energy consumption. Study showed this is boost speed. When upgrading perks it is called boost speed. The two should use the same name. There is a challenge to leave the first location without any equipment installed then reach the 3rd sector. What does it mean by equipment? Passive devices, all devices, devices and primary weapons, or no primary secondary devices or consumables? I got it somehow without doing anything different than normal. I remember there being a few other places of this but I don't remember where.

The cost for energy injectors seems too low - instead of worrying about core capacity I can just craft and use them when needed on the later sectors. Maybe make them increase core charge rate instead?

Hi! I read through your list. Thanks a lot for all your suggestions and the time it took to write them down. The vast majoriy of them are reasonable suggestions that would make the game better. The problem is: I think we won't have the time to even do one fifth of them, which is a real pity. Don't get me wrong, we need this input and we will put it on our long list of things todo. Just don't expect them all to be done although they probably make sense.

If you like you could pick five things of your list that you think would make the game a lot better or that you really didn't like at all. This would help us to see what may have the highest priority.

What a list @l2edl3aron ! You've got some good ones in there, some of which others have suggested and a lot of fresh ideas, as well.

I'm particularly a fan of your "Disable Passive Devices" suggestion.

I think adding Drones to the REPAIR tab (even if it's just showing what is active with the ability to scrap) would be a nice little addition. I'd love to repair Drones as well, though that puts a lot of pressure on how they're currently being utilized in-game.

Having current information regarding the ship's stats on the ship stat screen also makes a ton of sense, as well.

Here's hoping the team can find the time to implement these valuable contributions! Thank you, and let us know if you come up with more ideas. ;-)

Top things:-Targeting. This hinders playability, hence first.-Auto-crafting and auto-salvaging would reduce time taken away from playing.-Replace ship limitations with a penalty could open up possibilities without too much effort.-Add new content. This is not going to have the effort to results ratio of the above. I don't know what direction you all envision for the game, how much time you have, etc etc. With a list you can pick what fits/you like and you have time for.-If you really wanted me to pick new content, more enhancements would be easier to implement, more ships would add the most.

Hey, I just wanted to put another plug in changing some things that I'm not the biggest fan of.

Don't get me wrong, I like a game being challenging. While it is very challenging before you've upgraded all the perks, I don't think it is hard enough on hard, and I look forward to hardcore mode. Side note: While hard mode gives +25% credits and less resources. I think hardmode should give more resources, such that if you want to upgrade stuff with mk3, you really need to be playing on hard mode. And on hard mode, you really need to have your stuff upgraded to mk3.

Just these things making it hard by making a player fight the game, instead of by fighting enemy ships. This youtube video explains it much better than I ever could: When Difficult Is Fun - Challenging vs. Punishing Games - Extra Credits

-Little warning on new ships jumping in. Like sometimes I don't know more ships have jumped in until I'm taking damage.-The ! mark not remaining on ships that have alert on you (sometimes I just have to wait and see which direction I get hit from cuz I can't tell which ships are closing on me and it turning to try to range each set won't find them faster). Actually it would be nice if they were permanently marked, like a going from darker red to the current color, or glowing effect on target mark.-Things your reticule has past over not showing up on sensors, particularly at sorter range. With the size of objects and speeds traveled, if sensors don't detect it, you aren't going to find it.-Autosalvage / autocraft / craft and use.-When you die, it shows you explode, but not what killed you / how you died. The game is supposed to be difficult, you're supposed to die. But if you don't know why you died, you won't know what to try to prevent from happening in the future. Show the explosion from farther away or zoom out, or keep the camera rolling so you can see what happened.-Targeting enemies when in a group of friendlies. To launch a missile I need a lock, and with everyone flying like spaghetti it is hard, and having missiles lock and kill my drones is not fun. I already mentioned the other targeting things.-Drones, enemies, & mines. Can ships be smart enough not to fly thru mines. I've boosted thru a mine field before to get away from a swarm of enemies. I thought surely they would go around. No they went through and only a few ships made it through to me. Not that I mind enemies getting blown up but when my drones/mainframe over-ridens follow me into a mine field, and then fly around randomly like they do and get blow up it is annoying. You probably don't want to add in fleet commands, but maybe have drones not trigger mines because they're too small, or have them at least try not to set them off. Watching them close on ancients is annoying too.-Nanobots clouds and ancients being utterly silent.-I understand drops are random, and that it is easy to implement as such. It would be nice if there was some bias to getting things that haven't dropped before. With the number of items, chances are you will get 5 of something before you get even 1 of something else.

-Yeah, adding disable to passive devices would be nice, and the place for the option is already there.-Yeah, the REPAIR tab has space for drones to be listed.-More information on screens helps players make choices.